Marijuana laws, proposed fines vex School Committee

Thursday

Nov 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMNov 29, 2012 at 10:37 AM

Proponents of increasing marijuana fines in Needham are seeking the School Committee’s opinion on whether the proposed bylaw will successfully avert teens and other residents from smoking the drug in public.

Wei-Huan Chen

Proponents of increasing marijuana fines in Needham are seeking the School Committee’s opinion on whether the proposed bylaw will successfully avert teens and other residents from smoking the drug in public.

Needham police officer Lt. Chris Baker, Needham Coalition for Youth Substance Abuse Director Carol Read and Board of Health Chairman Stephen Epstein, presenting to the School Committee at a Nov. 20 meeting, said adding a $300 fine to the existing $100 fine could deter residents from smoking marijuana in public.

“This will send the message that Needham, despite law changes, does not feel it’s healthy for people to be subjected to someone smoking marijuana in public,” said Baker.

“We’ve had challenges with the perception of risk since decriminalization,” said Read. “Kids see marijuana as legal and this has been a problem. We want to send the right message to the public.”

Officials have been working on the proposed bylaw since the Massachusetts marijuana decriminalization law took effect in 2009, and they plan to present it to Town Meeting next spring. Needham would join more than 80 other communities in the state to add additional civil penalties for public marijuana consumption, according to Baker.

School officials said they supported the proposed law, but were wary teens and other residents might be confused about marijuana in light of the recent passage of state ballot question 3, which legalized the medicinal use of marijuana in Massachusetts. The diverse alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and medicinal marijuana laws pose a challenge to those trying to tell residents what is legal and what’s not, said officials.

“This is a mess. How do you send a clear message?” said School Committee member Michael Gries. “We have a huge education challenge in the community.”

School committee member Kim Marie Nicols suggested using the money from the fines to educate high school students about marijuana. Funds from the fines would be accrued by the town, but could be used for public education, according to Epstein.

The Board of Health remains largely opposed to any consumption of marijuana, medicinal or not.

“We all know that voters have spoken for medical marijuana,” said Epstein. “We [the Board of Health] were opposed to it because we didn’t feel the proposal was the best way to pursue the law.”

“First of all, smoking is a bad way to ingest marijuana for medicinal purposes,” he added. “Also, THC is an intoxicant. We don’t allow public drunkenness, and we feel marijuana should be treated the same way.”

Baker said he was not sure if authorities would have the legal right to arrest someone smoking marijuana in public if the person had a marijuana medical card.

Under the 2008 state decriminalization law, police still cannot arrest anyone for smoking marijuana. Residents can only be charged criminally if they fail to pay a fine or are in possession of more than an ounce of marijuana.

Another concern was whether or not Needham schools should accommodate staff members with a potential medical marijuana card by allowing them to smoke on school property.

“My expectation is that there won’t be any accommodation [for medical marijuana] in the Needham public schools,” said Superintendent Dan Gutekanst.

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